


When September ends

by xxx_cat_xxx



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Peter Feels, Sad Peter Parker, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, tony playing piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 17:49:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/pseuds/xxx_cat_xxx
Summary: Tony, Peter, and the old piano





	When September ends

He’d known from the beginning that it was a stupid idea. But something, maybe tiredness-turned-recklessness, maybe the fact that he’d done particularly well in training today, that Tony had raised his eyebrows in appreciation and had sat with him much longer than usual after dinner - something had led to Peter sneaking out of his room tonight, wandering around the tower as if it was his.

And then he finds himself sitting at the old piano, the one that doesn’t seem to fit into the tower’s spic and span interior at all, looking as it does like it had been submerged in water and pulled out only years afterwards. The one that is always closed, always silent, but always there. And tonight, it’s just too tempting to resist.

He clumsily plays a few tones with the index finger of his right hand. He’d taken one or two keyboard classes as a child, but then there had been no time, and then no money, and all he remembers now are the first keys of _Für Elise_ that Ned had taught him at band practice so many months ago.

And of course, Tony isn’t asleep. Of course he hears him, and he enters, stepping into the living room just a little too fast, his chest moving up and down just a little too quickly. He comes to a standstill next to the boy, and his face is showing no anger, no sadness, just a cold-and-calm facade that Peter knows too well from their earlier days.

It dawns on him then that he might have done something very, very stupid. Of course he’s seen the video of that MIT presentation, the one that happened just a few days before he found Tony chatting with May in his living room, about to change his life forever. Of course he’s heard of the September foundation.

But then, all Tony does is give a pale, fading smile. “Go on,” he says, his voice empty. “You’re not even doing too bad.”

He teaches Peter the basics. _Keep your hand hollow, as if it’s grabbing a tennis ball. Sit up, with your back straight, not like an old man - yeah, that’s better. Imagine that your middle finger is a bridge, and the thumb has to pass below it. Good. Now repeat that sequence._

And then, after a while, he starts to play a few short, happy songs, filling the air with false cheeriness. Tony plays as if he hasn’t done it in a long, long time, as if his fingers have to remember the places they once felt home at. But he’s Tony, after all, which means that he’s brilliant at anything he does, and to Peter it sounds like the first time he’s ever heard anyone play the piano.

He is afraid to look at him, in the beginning. He stares down instead, his eyes following the paths that Tony’s fingers draw between the black and the white. Peter has never noticed this before, but despite Tony’s smooth and pretty businessman-attire, the marks on his hands betray his real profession. They are covered in weals and scars of various sizes, collected from years of work in the lab, reminding Peter of fishermen he’s seen in black-and-white photographs of history books.

After a while, he starts to relax a bit. Tony’s voice is calm when he teaches, his words more patient than Peter is used to. It’s a certain level of intimacy, and he feels closer to his mentor than when they work in the lab, not only because the older man is bent half over him from behind.

And then it’s over. In the middle of a passage he was demonstrating, Tony’s hands just stop, hover in the air, and the distance between his fingertips and the keys grows from inches to miles.

The silence that follows is louder than anything Peter’s ever heard.

“That’s enough for today. It’s really past your bedtime, kid.”

His face is still as stoic as the Iron Man mask, but Peter is sitting close enough to hear Tony’s heart hammering away in his chest.

He thinks of Tony’s parents, and of his own parents, and then he thinks of how it is sometimes just a matter of minutes for a whole life to fall apart.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles when he slips away under Tony’s arms that are still just a bit too far away from the keys of the old piano. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Pete,” the older man replies, and his voice breaks just a bit at the end, just a little bit.


End file.
